REFUGEE

-- Civilians ensnared by the Tamil Tigers are among thousands of Tamil prisoners still held by the Sri Lankan government, human rights activists
said.

More than 11,000 Tamils were moved into prisons and so-called rehabilitation centers as the government this week freed 130,000 Tamils held in detention camps, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

The government said the Tamils are rebel fighters arrested last summer. The Red Cross, however, said some of them are Tamil civil administrators, youths forcibly conscripted to fight for the Tigers and relatives of the rebels. Others are civilians caught up in the final days of fighting and were arrested along with the rebels, who allegedly used them as human shields.

Those still held include the parents of Velupillai Prabhakaran, a Tamil Tiger leader killed this year. Prabhakaran's parents, who are in their 70s, had long been alienated from their son, The Times of London reported Saturday.

Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act allows people to be held without being charged and without trial, human rights activists said.

Two separatist guerrillas allegedly picked to spend some time training with the LTTE
On top of revelations that the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) bought arms from the Tamil Tigers, a former Ulfa leader says the Assamese separatist group also received military training from the Sri Lankan rebels.
Former Ulfa spokesman Sunil Nath said that a small Ulfa team from the northeast Indian border state went to Jaffna in Sri Lanka in the early 1990s when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled the northern peninsula.
"We got in touch with the LTTE through a Tamil Nadu politician," Sunil Nath told IANS in a telephone interview from Assam. "He [the politician] in turn contacted the LTTE."
According to Nath two separatist guerrillas were picked to spend some time training with the LTTE. They returned to India within a week. According to another former Ulfa militant, they came back ahead of time "because the LTTE training was too tough for us".